Before a stage production, there’s always an air of anxiety. There’s no second takes in a live performance, so there’s a lot of pressure on performers to give their all from the moment the curtain rises to when it falls. That’s true whether the play isperformed on Broadway, at a community theater, or in the case of a particular production of Shakespare’sCoriolanus, inFallout 76.
The Wasteland Theater Company’s performance ofCoriolanuson Sunday, November 19 at 7pm EST will be streamed by Jessica Star on theUnited Wastelanders Network Twitch channel. Thanks to United Wastelanders, the video of the performance will be uploaded to YouTube after the event. Encore performances may be in the cards as well, depending on reception to the November 19 performance. Ahead ofCoriolanus’debut, Wasteland Theatre Company’s artistic director Northern_Harvest talked to Game Rant about the feelings going into opening night, and what makes theFallout 76production of the Shakesparean play so special.
Foremost, Harvest said, was that this is, to their knowledge, the first timeCoriolanuswill be performed in any video game, not justFallout 76. Which, he pointed out, brings in a different set of concerns than other productions of the play might face.
Our cast and crew have been working tirelessly for months, rehearsing every Sunday under the play’s Director and Stage Manager Jonathan Thomas aka Bramadew. Just like in real-world theatre, the cast are excited for the performance. We get jitters like any actor does before a big show, only in our case we also have to worry aboutdisruptions like Super Mutants, hostile robots, griefers, being nuked, and server disconnections.
Fallout 76is a post-apocalyptic MMORPG, after all. Dropping nukes, hordes of hostiles, and other players are part and parcel with the experience, and it’s an experience that’s been considered by stage productions more recent thanCoriolanus. The recent play, Anne Washburn’sMr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, brings the art of performance into the post-apocalypse as well and frames performance at the end of the world as a testament to human survival and resilience.
In that way, the medium the Wasteland Theatre Company has chosen to use for its performance adds an element to its performance, making a statement about the way art and culture can survive armageddon. And likeBurnsadapts its source,TheSimpsons, into a new form to suit the setting, so too has Wasteland Theater Company adaptedCoriolanus, bringing elements ofFallout’s post-apocalypse into the Shakespearean tale.
We selectedCoriolanusas our fall production because it has so many parallels to the themes and stories within theFalloutuniverse, particularly the Brotherhood of Steel…In our production, Rome is replaced byFallout’s Brotherhood of Steel while the Volscians are now Raiders. ‘The people’ are now the Settlers, while the kniving Tribunes are now Brotherhood Scribes.
This adaptation ofFalloutelements to Shakespareis core to what Wasteland Theatre aims to do, and in turn what art after Armageddon could be like. In that way, the shared meaning between it andBurnsis clear—that performance is part of humanity and humanity endures. The addition ofFalloutelements to the performance, small and subtle as it may be, adds a dimension to the art on display, creating almost a play-within-a-play, acknowledging that the way people in the fictional world ofFalloutwould interact with culture changes with the shared experience of the collapse of civilization.
Coriolanuswill be thefourth piece of Shakespeare that the Wasteland Theatre Company has performed, said Harvest. The previous three wereMacbeth,Romeo & Juliet, andA Midsummer Night’s Dream. This has given them some expertise both in staging plays online and in applying that wasteland perspective to the great works of classical literature. Of the four plays,Coriolanusis by far the least famous of Shakespare’s works that the company has tackled, but it may be the one most intricately tied toFallout 76’s world and narrative, Harvest argued.
We really drew from theBrotherhood of Steel (BOS) questlinefor inspiration, as we found similarities between the character known as Knight Shin and Coriolanus himself. We hadn’t thought of doing a Brotherhood of Steel themed play, but Coriolanus and the pompous pride of Rome really fit well with the BOS…
As for what’s next, Harvest said the Wasteland Theatre Company will be determined as the performance group continues to explore both the Wasteland and the works of Shakespeare.
Fallout 76
WHERE TO PLAY
Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Skyrim and Fallout 4, welcome you to Fallout 76. Twenty-five years after the bombs fell, you and your fellow Vault Dwellers—chosen from the nation’s best and brightest – emerge into post-nuclear America on Reclamation Day, 2102. Play solo or join together as you explore, quest, build, and triumph against the wasteland’s greatest threats. Explore a vast wasteland, devastated by nuclear war, in this open-world multiplayer addition to the Fallout story. Experience the largest, most dynamic world ever created in the legendary Fallout universe. Expand southward to Skyline Valley – a brand-new region of Appalachia. Investigate the cause of the electric storm circling overhead and unveil the mystery around Vault 63 and its dwellers, including a shocking new Ghoul type – The Lost.
